There is many new features coming to Microsoft Teams in December 2019 if you read the roadmap for Microsoft 365. Some of the features might be postponed to later and some that will be released in December 2019 might not show up in your tenant until early next year. I will summarise the features listed in roadmap as “in development” and targeted for release in December 2019.
Multiteam Support in Shifts
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?featureid=50988
update
Postponed to Q3 2020
Microsoft Teams – Real Time Presence
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?featureid=52395
Currently the Presence can be a bit slow to update and you can’t always trust it. After this update I hope it will be almost instant as in Skype for Business.
update
Postponed to February 2020.
Microsoft Teams – Dynamic Emergency Calling for Direct Routing
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?featureid=53938
Dynamic Emergency Calling is available for Calling Plans and allows you send determine your location and send the emergency call to the appropriate Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP). This feature is only for United States.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/configure-dynamic-emergency-calling
update
Feature released
Microsoft Teams – Teams Voice Platform
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?featureid=53939
This is three APIs that are going to be released in General Availability in December. The Contact Center Integration will allow you to install a third-party application that receives calls for your Teams users, for example for Contact Centers and Attendants. One limitation in the preview of this API is that you can’t make outbound calls to PSTN, so if you get a call into your application and want to forward that to an external number that is not possible.
The Presence API is another thing that we been waiting for, Plenom and Embrava that sells busylights will be able to use this to read Teams presence and Attendant applications will be able to read presence and show for attendants. One limitation we know compared to what you could do in Skype for Business is that this Presence API will only be able to read presence and not write. One reason that you want to write presence could be if you as a Telco want to set the status “Busy in a call” for a user that is talking in their mobile phone (not a Teams call).
update
Launched
Changes in Incoming IP Video policy
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?featureid=57082
In meeting polices for Teams administrators have the option the turn on or off the setting “Allow IP Video”. Currently this setting will only prevent users to send video from their devices but they can receive video from others. After this update when “Allow IP Video” is disabled it will be disable both outbound and inbound for users with that policy. This is useful if you have users located on sited with low bandwidth.
update
Will roll out March 2020 – June 2002
Teachers get early access to class teams created with SDS
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?featureid=57291
In Teams for Education it is possible to create Teams from another system using a School Data Sync, so when a new class is added in the school system a Team will be created automatic with the right students as team members. With this update Teachers will be able to prepare the Team first before allowing students into the new team.
update
Feature released
Microsoft Teams – “Colleague joined Teams” notifications
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?featureid=57455
Like in Yammer you will get an notification when a colleague joined Teams.
update
Will start to roll out January 2020
Targeted communications in Microsoft Teams
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?featureid=57651
Instead of mentioning a person you will able to mention a role, maybe @IT-support and all users with the Title IT-support will get a notification.
Media optimization for Microsoft Teams Calling and Meetings for Citrix VDI
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?featureid=56626
With this update you will be able to use Teams Calling and Meetings in Citrix VDI. What they will do is to have the media stream outside of the Citrix session, so the media will go from Teams servers to client computer instead of going via the Citrix server. This was a function that worked with Skype for Business too and now it is coming to Teams.
updated 2020-01-02
Launched.
Teams for Linux client
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?featureid=56219
updated 2020-01-02
Launched.
M365 Apps & Services MVP | Consultant work at Exobe, based in Göteborg, Sweden. Co-host of Teamspodden, co-organizer of Teamsdagen. Been working with Exchange, LCS, OCS, Lync, Skype, Teams and related stuff for a while. Mostly writing tips and news after getting questions from customers.
